


family tree

by dollyfish



Category: Makai Ouji: Devils and Realist
Genre: Blood and Injury, Canon Compliant, Domestic, First Kiss, M/M, Plans For The Future, Pre-London, Relationship Study, SO URIEL IS AWKWARD, cant change my mind, very minor tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-06
Updated: 2019-06-06
Packaged: 2020-04-11 22:23:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19118878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dollyfish/pseuds/dollyfish
Summary: William laughed the comment off as well, so amused that even his head felt light, as light as his tongue.“I got lobar pneumonia a week before my portrait turned up here. They got scared I’d die, so they found an artist quickly and had me posing as soon as I got better. Remember?”





	family tree

 

 

Daylight invested the gallery at full force, so anyone observing through the delicate glass windows could have seen it happen. 

For five seconds there was only a confusing, black nothing. The dynamics still unclear, when William came to, it didn’t immediately get any better. Then Kevin got the bland hardkerchief out of his face and he could finally focus on the dancing boards of the ceiling. He inclined his head to look at Kevin, but Kevin gently corrected his position. He was dabbing William’s temple with the wet piece of cloth.

 

“I’m so, so embarrassed,” he said, almost whispering. “Mortified.”

 

William groaned. “Anything else?”

 

Kevin rolled up the cloth, slowly moving down the thin line that crossed William’s temple. His forehead hurt each time Kevin’s fingers grazed it. Kevin’s other hand pulled his hair back. This perspective felt hardly foreign. William couldn’t count the times Kevin had taken care of his injuries, no matter how superficial, but he supposed it was the kind of thing people didn’t keep track of. He wondered if Kevin did. “How do you feel?”

 

It stemmed from an unfortunate coincidence. The paintings of previous Twinings in the gallery had been taken down, but his uncle probably couldn’t find a decent purchaser. Kevin good-naturedly accepted to help him. So now William had been reminded of Horace Twining’s stern frown (his father’s father’s father) and his blonde-haired descendancy; last of all, his own pale-faced self staring back at him. As Kevin was propping it against the wall, the supports broke and William had paid the price in the form of a big, bleeding bruise.

 

“Like England almost lost another national treasure,” William replied, sitting up in front of Kevin’s concerned gaze. Before he realized what was happening, William started giggling. The painting lay upside down a few feet away, untouched. 

 

“Is the circumstance funny, now?”

 

William laughed the comment off as well, so amused that even his head felt light, as light as his tongue. The wound shouldn’t have anything to do with it, as anyone with the bare minimum medical education would allegedly know. “I got lobar pneumonia a week before my portrait turned up here. They got scared I’d die, so they found an artist quickly and had me posing as soon as I got better. Remember?”

 

Kevin stared at the bloodied cloth in his hands and didn’t reply. 

 

“It’s not like I can blame my parents, though. I’d be pissed myself if I went without leaving a trace,” the young lord quietened down, standing upright without Kevin’s help, much to the servant’s apparent relief. He didn't want to imagine the damage if the likes of Franklin or Volta had died of pneumonia as children. That surely had to mean some people were not born to die like everyone else.

 

“Here… That will stop bleeding in a bit.”

 

William’s hand shot up to his face. The bruise felt too hot to the touch. 

Kevin gave him the cloth, kneeling by the painting. Now that he examined it, William could confirm that Kevin definitely worried too much about him. His portrait had received twice the damage, but he didn’t care half as much as he should have. As any of the dead souls in that gallery would have. 

But all of it got pushed to the bottom of William’s thoughts when he gave a second glance to the portrait in front of him.  

 

“Kevin,” William called. His voice didn’t sound like it came from his body at all, but somewhere distant and unfeeling. “If he is dead - if -, it means this all comes down to me.”

 

“Well, if there were still a fortune to speak of…” 

 

William shook his head slowly. “Uncle Parton took the responsibility of raising me and managing my finances. He’d be too busy to look for a consort and think about creating a family for himself. It was over after - after the incident… - when he accepted me.”

 

The butler was picking up the wooden shards of the unfortunate frame, patiently lending him an ear as if he owed William any of this. Not cleaning up, as William wouldn’t know where to start with any chore excluding changing his sheets - the listening part, Kevin did it better than William could have asked of him, when and for exactly how long William needed it. It was as if Kevin had an inclination for all those traits William explicitly lacked. And he did like to claim them to be none, didn’t he.

 

Kevin politely averted his gaze, but his voice sounded contemplative. “Mr. Parton doesn’t regret that choice, I’m certain.”

 

“Well, I’ll make sure to ask him,” William retorted, his teeth showing just a little more than it'd befit his high upbringing. Now Kevin’s eyes shifted over to him, but he was facing the paintings. The empty space at the end of the row, wooden boards that looked so promising, unfortunately wouldn’t be absorbed into non-existence by the wall. “His side of the family might never continue to appear here. I wonder if this is it.”

 

He couldn’t even imagine the portraits going on and on, as far as the eye could see, breaking the very physical boundaries of the gallery, and an aristocrat of his standing had plenty of reasons to care. But, strangely, all he felt was a vague sense of anticipation. William hardly paid attention to the people he went to school with, let alone the ones who didn’t exist yet. Going on and on, forever, things quickly lost meaning. Look at those… demons, or whatever (very much scientific) phenomenon had landed into his life! 

The principle of mass conservation could be applied to lineage, history, power as well.

It was quite a strange time of the day to realize he couldn’t care less if his family tree were suddenly eradicated. A few minutes and it’d be lunchtime. 

 

Kevin had walked up to stand a respectful couple steps behind him while William’s musings got the better of him. The emptiness in the mansion stung a little less with him around, as seeing him carry on with his duties planted a seed of warmth in William’s chest, the emotional equivalent of the usual coffee he prepared in the morning - That’s what a good butler was supposed to act like, wasn’t it? Because Kevin was a noteworthy butler. For the record, Kevin never let William miss a single morning routine, ever. Not even after the incident. “It’s probably too soon to think about it.” 

 

“But nobody will if I don’t. I don’t have pneumonia and I’m not a child, Kevin, so no excuses.”

 

“You’ll find the right one someday.”

 

William’s mouth twisted into a grimace. “Yeah, but in this country girls are not allowed into university or to get a serious education. What are we supposed to talk about?”

 

“Maybe you’ll get to fix that once you’re the youngest Prime Minister in history.” The smile in Kevin’s voice was anything but hidden. And, apparently, also a huge uncalled for boost to William’s stubborn mood.

 

“What? To will the perfect partner into existence?”

 

“Just have a little faith, young master, just that.”

 

William’s fingers drummed on the sturdy frame of a painting, which, at a glance a good five feet taller than a normal adult, towered over them. It made the same sound as a light drizzle just outside the window. It was then that he noticed the overwhelming silence in the gallery, just like a mirror that would hand back every sensation, every thought to him. Different from a graveyard. It was a real silence. 

 

“The right one, uh? Sometimes I feel like I’ve already found them,” William confessed. 

 

There they were, echoing blindly within his chest. The silence delivered instantly. William didn’t miss a single one of Kevin’s motions, when he stood up, stretched out one shoulder, the left, and sighed, pushing up his sleeves. The unblemished button-up made him look a lot more informal than usual, though William was aware, in the back of his mind, that it’s what Kevin always wore under the uniform or the cassock. It probably was the rarity of the vision, those days.

 

It almost distracted him from the lack of a significant response. William lifted a blonde eyebrow. “Now don’t use this for one of your bets.”

 

Kevin made a disconsolate sound.  His hand brushed against William’s, just brief enough to ascribe it to coincidence, which was the only thing they could do anymore in order not to give it the undignified name of “dancing around each other.” William didn’t dance, it just ascended the list of things he wouldn’t do as a general rule.

 

“Now, believe me when I say this, that’s not the spirit in my bets.” Kevin had reddened a little, as he tended to do when his master delivered one of those remarks. He was also smiling despite the deeper vein that ran beneath his sentence. 

 

“At least you’re upfront about that,” William sighed. 

 

Only when Kevin made the effort to look down did William realize - consciously, intentionally realize - that he’d been staring. In that moment, William knew the script as if he’d written it himself - maybe he should’ve followed that hunch.

But he knew Kevin recognized a part of him, an intent, you might call it, that skirted that morbid curiosity normal society didn’t like to taint their hands with. He knew because Kevin stopped smiling the moment William stepped into his space, close. And they were close. So close that the tips of their shoes almost touched. So close William could determine Kevin’s skin lacked any flaw, pore, overheated spot, freckle, anything to place him in the here and now. One would think that, no matter how laborious, his servant should have caught someone’s attention by now. 

 

Kevin probably knew what was coming before William spoke. “As you will on all the rest. Right?”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“Just look around you,” William heard his own voice getting weaker. It felt physically humiliating, but never as much as the knowledge that it still sounded like an order. “If - If you choose to leave, which you can, I deserve to know who they are.”

 

Kevin inhaled, comprehension seeping into his expression after a mere instant, and if he started thinking of William as a control freak sort of teenager struggling with abandonment issues, well, he’d handle it. But Kevin never got the chance to  _ think _ too long _.  _ William propped himself up on his tiptoes and kissed him. His hand found rest on the back of Kevin’s neck, carded in his soft hair. 

Kevin’s lips didn’t move an inch and William could tell his whole body just stood there. 

William adjusted his head just slightly sideways, so he missed the exact moment Kevin’s eyes slid closed. It would have been very hard to miss the way Kevin kissed back.

 

William’s back hit the creaking wall, with the groan of the old nails and old paintings hanging there like unannounced guests. At one point Kevin’s hands had climbed William’s sides, fisting into the extremely expensive fabric of his jacket. A slip he was willing to forgive, or eager to make him pay for. William’s arms winded around Kevin’s shoulder, pulling him down to deepen the kiss. Kissing Kevin made him hotter than he could imagine, like a whole town burning. The hard planes of Kevin’s shoulders, the tenderness of his lips went down to his knees, but he could still ascribe that to the head injury. When William touched his right shoulder, Kevin’s breath hitched in the kiss. It had to be sore - from the efforts in the garden, perhaps. 

So, William apologized, then focused on his cheek instead. His full palm could hardly cover it, for years, but he didn’t think his hands would grow much anymore. Now he allowed them to fix a lock of hair behind Kevin’s ear, for good measure, like particularly tender lovers did. 

At times, even tender not-lovers.  

 

“Does this mean you’re not going to leave soon?” William jabbed, somewhat hopeful. He just wished to take the eerie strain from Kevin’s body and replace it with warmth, the same warmth that let him rest easy, the warmth of a home in the winter… Of a bloodstream, a beat. Because William liked to give things a name. Must be this century’s effect.

 

(Where did that thought come from?)

 

Kevin looked neutral but decidedly not composed. “Where else could I go,” he breathed. 

 

Content with the answer, William’s eyelashes fluttered closed. What a strange way to put it, indeed.

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
